Europe in Palestinian Eyes … Mohammed Amer
Europe in Palestinian Eyes: Palestinian Media Representation of the European Union’s (EU) Role during the 2014 War on Gaza
Mohammed Mosheer A. Amer Department of English, Islamic University – Gaza [email protected]
Abstract
In times of war and national crises, the role of media becomes more defining as they have a considerable influence in shaping public opinion and perceptions on national issues and political actors and entities. This paper analyzes how the European Union (EU) is represented in the Palestinian media during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. The study draws on a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach for the analysis of news reports and opinion articles published over a two-month period by three key Palestinian media outlets, Ma’an News Agency, Felesteen and Al-Ayyam newspapers that referred to the EU in their news coverage of the war. The analysis shows that the Palestinian media projected an overall negative representation of the EU role as being complacent, reticent and ineffectual in stopping Israel’s attacks and in taking on a vigorous political role that counters US unconditional support to Israel, while they praised the European popular position supporting the Palestinians and calls for boycott of Israeli settlements. The study concludes that the Palestinian media treated the EU as one monolithic entity, yet there is need to highlight the various policy positions and contexts influencing the EU institutions and member states. A nuanced treatment of the EU is necessary to better assess EU policies and to point to the consequences of an ineffectual and irresponsive EU role on Palestinian just demands and rights.
Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Palestinian Media, European Union (EU), Europe – representation– 2014 War on Gaza.
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Introduction
Anything that is said or written about the world is articulated from a particular ideological position: language is not a clear window, but a refracting, structuring medium. If we can acknowledge this as a positive, productive principle, we can go on to show by analysis how it operates in texts (Fowler, 1991, p.10).
In our globalized world, news media have become influential instruments and sources of attitude- shaping, sense-making, and knowledge-gaining. News media play a critical role in the dissemination and inculcation of people’s social values, belief systems, and ideologies, and at the same time they are profoundly pivotal in constructing, influencing or challenging people’s perceptions, opinions, and representations of ‘Other’ social groups and polities (Amer, 2008).Therefore, focusing on news discourse generally underscores the powerful role mass media plays in transmitting and shaping the collective images, perceptions and interpretation of events, and in setting the nation’s political agenda as well. In particular, Fowler (1991) posits that news media is a discourse practice, much like other discourses, which does not necessarily neutrally reflect social reality, but it actively engages in the social construction of the reality it speaks of. Put differently, news texts do not constitute honest recordings of the reality ‘out there’ and they are far from being unbiased (Amer, 2008). Journalists are inherently selective and subjective as they make deliberate choices about what information to include or exclude, which lexical and syntactic elements to describe news actors and events, how to present and organize information in news texts, and which socio-political, cultural, or professional values they embark on in writing about or evaluating such actors and events. These choices necessarily conjure up particular perceptions of social groups and bear the ideological imprints of the producers of these news texts and the institutions in which they operate. Similarly, Fairclough (1995: 12) points out that “the ideological work of media language includes particular ways of representing the world…particular constructions of social identities… and particular construction of social relations.” In times of war and tensions, the role of media becomes more defining as it has a considerable influence in shaping public views and perceptions on national issues. These views are shaped by realities or ideologies and become manifested in the extent of news coverage of a particular event as well as the interpretations, reactions and attitudes towards that event.
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In this light, news media discourse illustrates a society’s national self-image and that of the 'other'. Through a particular coverage of events, the media contribute to the construction of a specific ‘version’ of social reality and affect public opinion and party politics. This proves particularly relevant in examining the Palestinian media discourse on Europe, mainly the European Union, given the role such media play as sources of information and as powerful agents in the representation of events and people. A close analysis of the representational resources used in this media discourse would offer a substantive and insightful understanding of the nature and mechanisms of the discursive construction of EU(rope) in Palestinian news media. While much research has analyzed the role played by Europe in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, little research has addressed the Palestinians’ perceptions of Europe and its role as represented by Palestinian media. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to a growing literature addressing Palestinian discourse’s treatment of the role of the EU in the Palestinian question.
Political Background
Since the signing of the Oslo accords between the PLO and Israel in the early 1990’s, Europe, especially the EU, has been a key political and economic player in the “peace process” between the Palestinians and Israelis. As one of the world’s leading economies, the EU has used its economic leverage to gain more political involvement in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. The EU has had a direct involvement in the Israeli /Palestinian conflict since the inception of the Oslo process, most notably through the provision of financial and economic support, mainly to the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) institutions, efforts at regional stability and multilateral solutions, and support for Palestinian state- and institution- building (Asseburg, 2003).As the largest external donor to the PA, the EU’s bilateral assistance to Palestine under the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI), which is the main EU financing instrument for Palestine, is estimated to be between €1.11 billion and €1.356 billion for the years 2017-20201. This EU's role has been criticized on the grounds that it has been limited to the provision of financial assistance to the Palestinians, while no tangible political role was taken in order to change political realities on the ground and in conflict resolution (Al-Fattal, 2010;Witney, 2013).
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Tartir (2014) is critical of the EU role noting that while the EU and European countries are the biggest donors for the Palestinians’ state-building project, they are well-known to be good “payers” but bad “players,” and their intervention is fraught with contradictions and hesitation. The EU has been seen as a stability-seeking and security-driven actor in Palestine. Asseburg (2003, p. 12) argues that while the United States assumed an almost exclusive monopoly over the so-called “peace process” between the Palestinians and the Israelis, Europe placed greater emphasis on the provision of more economic aid, partly through bankrolling the emerging Palestinian Authority’s (PA) institutions and providing more than 50 percent of the international community’s financial assistance to the PA between 1994-1998. Similarly, Al-Fattal (2010) points out that the EU foreign policy directed at providing aid to the Palestinian territories failed to exert sufficient political clout to help establish an independent Palestinian state, and therefore weakened its image as a genuine and influential actor in the peace process. Bouris (2014) notes that EU’s emphasis on state-building as a means to conflict resolution is fraught with incoherence and inconsistencies in its policies and practices and there has been an emerging gap between rhetoric and reality (cited in Tartir, 2014, p. 85). Similarly, Witney (2013) argues that European efforts to curb Israel’s efforts to consolidate its occupation of the Palestinian territories have had little impact, and that European focus on “state-building” has reached a deadend and resulted in a dependency culture in the PA away from growing a real economy. Despite the absence of an effective EU political role, its economic assistance to the PA’s institutions was welcomed by the key players in the peace process, especially the Palestinians who have been in dire need for financial and technical assistance to kick-start their economic activities and build their institutions. The Israelis and Americans were happy that the ‘Old Continent’ would pay the bill (Al-Fattal, 2010), while the US maintained an almost exclusive monopoly over the political process between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Despite their potential leverage economically and politically, the Europeans were excluded from playing an active political role, especially one that would bring the Israeli occupation to an end (Gomel, 2016). In fact, some would hold that European aid to the Palestinians has in fact entrenched the occupation by easing its impact on the Palestinians while paying the costs of Israel’s occupation (Witney, 2013).
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With this in mind, it becomes pertinent to examine how Palestinian news media construct the EU, especially during a watershed event in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is the devastating Israeli war on Gaza in 2014 that led to the death and wounding of thousands of Palestinians and massive damage in civilian property and infrastructure. In other words, the study looks into the way Palestinian media outlets treated the role of the EU during this conflict and whether such discursive representation conjures up positive or negative image of the EU.
Methodology
The study employs the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach in order to examine how leading Palestinian media outlets represented the role of the EU during the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. Given that language plays a crucial role in media representations, and much research has focused on the intertwining of language, discourse practices and larger social structures and conditions (Bloor and Bloor, 2007; Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999;Fairclough and Wodak, 1997; Locke, 2004; McKenna, 2004; Van Leeuwen, 2008; Wodak and Chilton, 2005), the methodological approaches within Critical Discourse Analysis, especially the work of Fairclough (1992, 1995) and van Dijk (1998a,b, 2001), are especially useful for this study. The analysis is carried out at two levels: the first involves examining the most recurrent topics drawn upon in news reports during the war and the frequency of these discourse topics. Van Dijk (1998a, 1991, 2001) defines topics as overall meanings which cannot be observed directly, but are assigned to discourse by language users. They are propositions, which form a text's semantic macro- structure, which represent the most important information of a discourse, play a key role in discourse production, and are used by readers to build mental models of the text (van Dijk, 1993; 2001). In news report, for example, topics are generally expressed in headlines, leads (or introductory paragraphs) and topical sentences. They are typically constructed from propositions at word- and clause-levels which are then subsumed into higher-level macro-propositions which form part of the thematic macrostructure of a text or a group of texts (van Dijk, 2018; 2001). One can think of these overall topics as general orientations communicated in the texts examined here.
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Van Dijk (1991) uses the image of the ‘pyramid’ to describe the hierarchical organization of information in a news text. At the bottom of the pyramid are large details and information expressed by words and clauses. Such low-level information is reduced to high-level propositions or topics which are usually expressed in the headline and/or the lead paragraph. These topics represent what news producers see as the most important information about a news event. They also help news consumers to assign global coherence to the text or a group of texts, determine what an event is about, and comprehend, store and recall its most important information. Second, the analysis examines the discourse presentation of the EU in the opinion articles published in the three media outlets, and this involves analyzing the main discourse topics and their textual realizations including lexical choices, transitivity, presupposition and argumentation. The deployment of certain linguistic resources to construct political entities is central in news and political representation (see, for example, Chilton, 2004; Fairclough, 1995; Kress, 1990). The main aim is to explore how the media helps in shaping, producing and reproducing official and popular attitudes towards key political events and actors in the conflict. Lexical choice is perhaps the most visible discursive feature which is used to frame particular social actors and events and often reflects the ideological positions of journalists and the institutions they work for. Lexical selection may also have ideological effects on how text consumers are positioned to understand a particular situation by virtue of contributing to the formation of preferred mental models of this situation (cf. van Dijk, 1998a, 2001). Describing a political actor as a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’ is a classic example of how an ideological representation of a particular reality can be encoded in the lexical choices writers make. Fairclough (1989) distinguishes between three types of value that words may have. Experiential value relates to how ideological representations of aspects of the world are encoded in the wording of a particular discourse. An example that illustrates this point is that lexical categorizations of social actors as ‘rioters’ or ‘mobsters’ versus ‘demonstrators’, or as ‘inmates’ versus ‘political prisoners’, may signal the author’s perspective on social actors and their actions. Words also have relational value, according to Fairclough (1989). That is, the lexical choices in a particular text may reflect or define the social relations between the author and other discourse participants.
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For example, a speaker may opt for formal or euphemistic expressions rather than informal or hyperbolic expressions. In such an instance, the motivation for this lexical selection may be to establish solidarity or empathy with the readers, to save-face for the discourse participants, or to signal the speaker’s power and status vis-à-vis other discourse participants. The expressive value of words involves the positive or negative evaluations evoked by the use of particular lexical selections. Thus, describing particular discourse participants as ‘political prisoners’ rather than ‘inmates’ is most likely to express the speaker’s positive evaluation of those participants. For purposes of the analysis, three main Arabic-speaking Palestinian news media outlets were selected, i.e. Felesteen newspaper, Alayyam newspaper and Ma'an News Agency. These media are among the most well-known Palestinian media outlets and represent political views across the Palestinian political spectra, with Felesteen newspaper being close in political orientation to the Hamas Movement, Alayyam being close to the Palestinian Authority PA and Fatah Movement, and Maan News Agency describes itself as independent Palestinian media outlet. Their standing in the Palestinian public in the Occupied Palestinian Territories makes them a trendsetter for national news media, as they play a key role in shaping or reflecting public opinion and popular perceptions. The corpus covers news articles on the EU over a two-month period from 1 July 2014 to 31 August 2014, during which Israel launched a massive war on Gaza leading to the death of close to 2,400 Palestinians and wounding over 10,000 others, in addition to massive destruction in Palestinian civilian infrastructure, which led to an international outcry to stop the bloodshed. According to the Report Summary, paragraph 21,issued in 2015, by the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, 67 Israeli soldiers and six Israeli settlers were killed in Palestinian attacks during the war. The events during the 2014 war resulted in vehement diplomatic activity, most notably European officials' activities and the popular reactions to the bloodshed during the war.
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The study aims to answer the following main research question and its sub-questions:
1. How is the EU represented in Palestinian media's discourse?
This main question has the following secondary questions:
1.1 What main topics are drawn upon in the reprsentation of the EU? 1.2 What linguistic features are employed in the discursive construction of the Europe? 1.3 How do these linguistic features contribute to a favorable or unfavorable representation of the EU?
The guiding logic behind focusing on these specific questions is that they go to the heart of explaining how the EU is represented in the Palestinian media by clarifying the discursive and linguistic realizations of such discourse representation. To answer the study’s questions, all articles published in each media outlet’s website during this period were collected. The following ,”which stand for “EU "أوروبا" و "أوروبي" ” االتحاد األوروبي"keywords in Arabic “European”and“Europe” respectively were used. The study corpus includes all news reports and opinion articles published in the selected media outlets during the study period. Upon compiling the data corpus, texts were first coded for standard categories such as name of media outlet, name of writer and day and month of publication. Then topics were arrived at after analyzing titles, topical paragraphs, quotes, summaries, recurrent keywords, metaphors, arguments, particular graphic emphasis of text and intertextual traces of other voices and discourses in the texts. At the same time, notes about the event contexts of the selected texts and bibliographic information about the writers were also noted wherever appropriate. Data Analysis
The compiled text corpus consisted of a total of 147 news reports and 24 opinion articles that were collected during the study period. Since all articles were written in Arabic, the researcher translated the extracts into English, and each translation and its equivalent quoted source text were included in the body of this paper. In the section below, I examine the discourse topics drawn upon in news reports, and in the following section I look into the representation of Europe in opinion articles.
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News Reports: Discourse Topics and Frequency
In this analysis, I first focus on the discourse topics that were mainly drawn upon in referring to the EU by each media outlet and the frequency of these topics. One important finding is that the three media outlets differed in referring to the EU, with Ma’an News Agency significantly scoring the highest percentage of references to the EU in its news reports (65) with a frequency percentage of (44.21%), while Felesteen newspaper came second with (48) reports at (32.65%), and .Al-Ayyam newspaper came last with (34) news reports at a frequency percentage of (23.14%). As can be seen from Table 1, Ma’an News Agency paid the highest attention to the European reactions during its war coverage. This disparity in referring to the EU correspondingly points to each media’s editorial policy and interest in the European position and reaction to the ongoing conflict.
Table 1: Number of references to the EU in news reports ineach media outlet
Media Outlets News Percentages Reports Maan News Agency 37 July 2014 44.21% Maan News Agency 28
August 2014
Feleteen Newspaper 24 July 2014 32.65% Felesteen Newspaper August 2014 24
Al-Ayyam Newspaper 18 23.14% July 2014 Al-Ayyam Newspaper 16 August 2014
Total 147 100%
Analysis of news reports also involved looking into the type and frequency of topics drawn upon by reporters in their news coverage of the EU role during the 2014 war and what implications that may be arrived at in this respect. The distribution of topics across the corpus points to a common
Journal of the Arab American University. Volume (5). Number (2)/2019 |9 Europe in Palestinian Eyes … Mohammed Amer journalistic practice, as reporters select, prioritize, and map the narrative flow of events in order to create a certain line of thought (Shreim 2012). In examining the topics frequently drawn upon in the news reports, the analysis found that eight main topics were mainly drawn upon in the coverage of the Europe’s role during the 2014 conflict. The topic “Palestinian Calls on the EU to Stop Israeli War and to boycott Israel” topped the most frequent topics in the news reports (about 47 times) (29.75%), see Table (2) below. This high reference perhaps points to an awareness of the importance of the EU’s role in the ongoing conflict as a key international player, and at the same time it implies these Palestinian media believe that the EU is not doing enough and it needs to step up its involvement in the conflict. The frequency of this topic corresponds with a prevalent negative assessment of the EU’s role during the conflict expressed in the opinion articles, as will be discussed in section 4.2 below.
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Table 2: Frequency of topics drawn upon in news reports
Felesteen Maan News Al-Ayyam Newspaper Agency # Topics Total Percentage July and August July and August July and August 2014 2014 2014 Palestinian Calls on EU to Stop 1 Israeli War and to boycott 8 17.02% 13 27.65% 26 55.31% 47 29.75% Israel EU’s assistance to the 2 11 33.33% 10 30.30% 12 36.36% 33 20.89% Palestinian people EU states’ popular protests 3 1 5% 4 20% 15 75% 20 12.66% against Israeli War in Gaza
4 EU’s diplomatic efforts 7 36.48% 3 15.78% 9 47.36 19 12.03%
Welcoming EU’s Boycotting of 5 4 28.57% 6 42.85 4 28.57% 14 8.86% Israel Criticizing EU’s inaction over 6 1 8.33 5 41.66 6 50% 12 7.59% Israel’s War EU’s Concern over war 7 casualties or Call for Ending 2 25% 4 50% 2 25% 8 5.06% the War EU’s criticism of Israel’s War 8 2 40% 3 60% 0 0% 5 3.16% in Gaza Total 158 100.00%
Reference to the “EU’s assistance to the Palestinian people” came second in the highest frequency reaching 33 times (20.89). This result is not surprising in light of the significant economic assistance the EU has offered to the Palestinians, mainly the PA, during the past two decades, which helped the PA build its institutions and perform its tasks during the Oslo accords. The topics of “EU states’ popular protests against Israeli War in Gaza” and “EU’s diplomatic Moves to end war” came third and fourth with 20 and 19 times (12.66%) and (12.03%) respectively. The topics of “Welcoming EU’s Boycotting of Israel” and “Criticizing EU’s inaction over Israel’s War” were next in frequency.
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The last two topics ‘EU’s Concern or Call for Ending the War’ and ‘EU’s criticism of Israel’s War in Gaza’ were marginal in the coverage constituting 8 and 5 times respectively (see Figure 1 below).
35.00% 30.00% 29.75% 25.00% 20.00% 20.89% 15.00%
12.03% 12.66% 10.00% 7.59% 8.86% 5.00% 3.16% 5.06% 0.00% EU’s EU’s Criticizing Welcoming EU’s EU states’ EU’s Palestinian criticism of Concern EU’s EU’s diplomatic popular assistance to Calls on EU Israel’s War over war inaction over Boycotting efforts protests the to Stop in Gaza casualties or Israel’s War of Israel against Palestinian Israeli War Call for Israeli War people and to Ending the in Gaza boycott War Israel
Figure 1: Frequency of topics drawn upon in news reports
Here it is worth noting that the three media outlets differed in the frequency of these eight topics, with Ma’an News Agency scoring the highest percentage in drawing upon the topics ‘EU states’ popular protests against Israeli War in Gaza’ and ‘Palestinian calls on the EU to Israeli war and to boycott Israel’ than the other two media outlets at (75%) and (55.31%) respectively. Felesteen newspaper reported most frequently on ‘EU’s criticism of Israel’s War in Gaza’ and ‘EU’s Concern over war casualties or Call for Ending the War’ at (60%) and (50%) respectively. The topics of ‘EU’s criticism of Israel’s War in Gaza’ and ‘EU’s diplomatic efforts’ were most frequently referred to by Al-Ayyam newspaper at (40%) and (36.48%) respectively. The frequency of each topic clearly relates to the three media outlets’ recognition of the role played by the EU in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, a role that takes on a more nuanced representation in opinion articles, as the next section shows.
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Europe in the Palestinian Eyes: A Tangled Representation The selection of perspectives on the opinion pages provides opportunities for ideological control, according to Page (1996). Newspaper editors decide to accept, solicit or exclude particular views and opinions on the basis of their editorial policies and political preferences, which also say something about the values embraced by the media outlet. It perhaps needs little discussion to say that while a media outlet may allow for various political positions to appear on its opinion pages, most opinion pieces would obviously follow its main ideological perspective and editorial line. Henry and Tator (2002, p. 216) hold that editorials reflect the broader ideological positions of the newspaper’s managers and owners, and their targeted audience, who are not only the reading public but also the society’s economic and political elites, i.e. they are “ideological statements intended to convince the reader to embrace a particular point of view, as well as the ideology that underlies it.” The opinion articles published by the three media outlets during the study period were 24 articles. These articles did not show any significant differences in the frequency of referring to the EU, as the numbers were (6), (9), and (9) for Al-Ayyam, Felesteen, and Ma'an News, respectively. More importantly, in examining opinion articles addressing the role of the EU during the 2014 War, the analysis identifies three central topics that were drawn upon in the representation of the EU (see Figure 2 below). At the centre of this discourse representation lies the assignment of specific roles and values to the EU using a host of linguistic features including lexicalization, metaphors, argumentation and other textual features that all contribute to the construction of a rather tangled representation of the EU. The analysis reveals that the three primary themes in the these media outlets were complicity with Israel’s conduct against the Palestinians, constituting (37%) of the total opinion articles, the inefficacy of the EU as a key player in the events (25%), and praising European popular solidarity with the Palestinians, making (38%) of the total number of articles. As clearly observed in the opinion articles, the topics that emerge from the corpus are mainly negative, especially pointing to a complicit or ineffectual EU role in the conflict. These views of the EU are seemingly buttressed by the reality faced by the Palestinians and the failure on the EU part to effect a substantive role in the Middle East conflict.
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0% 0% 0% 0% Sympathetic Complicity European with Israel Popular 37% Position 38% An Ineffective International Player 25%
Figure 2: Distribution of Key Topics in Opinion Articles
To put it differently, the Palestinian media’s representation of the EU has been on a continuum, from lamenting its role as ineffective, silent, and complicit in the plight befalling the Palestinian Gazans as a result of Israel’s occupation and attacks, to the positive construal of Europe as showing solidarity through popular protests and boycott and divestment campaigns. As will be shown below, the three media outlets' positions did not differ with respect to the official EU’s policy towards the Palestinian. Less prominent, though, was the positive construal of Europe. 4.2.1 Complicity with Israel
The first central topic that received great prominence in the opinion articles involves a vocal criticism of the EU as being complicit with Israel’s action. This topic was centrally mentioned in nine opinion articles, making about 37% of the whole corpus of articles. The negative perception of Europe, namely, the EU, is more apparent in these articles and shared by different writers. The EU was largely referred to as “complicit”, “hypocrite”, “failing to exert pressure on Israel”, exercising “double standards”, “rewarding the aggressor” in dealing with the Palestinians. There is frequent reference to the EU’s culpability in the events, particularly as a party that turns a blind eye to the Palestinians’ predicament. In the following extract, for example, the loss of trust in the EU is even more evident as the writer here holds that the EU rewards the aggressor, i.e., Israel. The EU’s conduct, the writer argues, undermines proclaimed EU’s values and value-driven policies which he believes are non- existent or overlooked.
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While the EU is perceived as democratic, this is not the case when it comes to the Palestinians’ plight, and the situation is quite disappointing to many Palestinians, the writer argues.
1 عندما قامت اسرائيل بالهجوم على شمال القطاع في نهاية شهر فبراير 2008 ، تم تهديد السكان بانهم سيجلبون على انفسهم
"هلوكوست", على لسان نائب وزير الحرب السابق ماتان فلنائي . وفعال تم قتل101 فلسطينياً ، منهم 64طفل . والسؤال الواضح
هو: ماذا كان رد فعل " المجتمع الدولي" انذاك ؟الشيء! بل على العكس من ذلك فإناالتحاد األوروبي و الواليات المتحدة قاما
بمكافأة المعتدي. وليس هناك حاجة للتأكيد على أن هذا سيشكل ضوءا أخضرا لما يحصل من اعتداءات متتالية على غزة…ففي
الوقت الذي تضرب به طائرات الف16 االسرائيلية و المصنوعة في أمريكا بيوت غزة بقنابل فإن األمم المتحدة ، جامعة الدول
العربية،اإلتحاداالوروبي ، ومنظمة المؤتمر االسالمي ، قد اختاروا الصمت عملياً . وبالتالي فقد وقفوا بجانب المضطِهد
االسرائيلي. فقد فشلت ، وبكل أسف ، مئات أجساد األطفال والنساء المقطوعة األطراف أن تقنعهم بالتدخل [غزة 2014 !
معاحيدر عيد 2014 يوليو]
1 When Israel attacked the northern Gaza Strip at the end of February 2008, the residents were threatened that they would bring themselves a "holocaust," according to the former deputy war minister Matan Vilnai. 101 Palestinians, including 64 children, were killed.The obvious question is: What was the reaction of the "international community" then? On the contrary, the European Union and the United States rewarded the aggressor. There is no need to stress that this will give a green light [for Israel] to launch more successive attacks on Gaza ... While the Israeli and US-made F16s hit Gaza homes with bombs, the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference practically chose to remain silent. Thus, they stood beside the Israeli oppressor. Unfortunately, hundreds of bodies of children and women ,which were cut off into pieces , have failed to persuade them to intervene [Ma'an News Agency Gaza 2014! Haider Eid July2014].
In this extract, the attribution of resentment and negative feelings towards the EU is evident in the strong appraisal expression “rewarding the aggressor”, i.e. Israel. In addition, by keeping silent over Israel’s attacks, the EU gives it the “green light” and “effectively standing with the “Israeli oppressor” to continue attacks. Thus, the EU is given negative agency and is made to appear out of synch with its values and its perceived role in the conflict.
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It is worth noting that the author here equated the EU position with that of the US, thus accentuating the EU's negative role by putting it on the same footing with the generally perceived negative role of the US. The argument here is underlain by an emotional move that puts Palestinian realities and devastations as a result of Israel’s war in contrast with expected, yet culpable EU role. This argumentation turns the rhetoric of EU officials about European values on its head. Note the highly emotive images of women’s and children’s limbs being cut by the Israeli war machine, with indirect blame being assigned to EU for making no stance against that. The phrase ‘chose to remain silent’ presupposes that Europe and the other governments had the ability and necessary leverage to intervene and stop the killing (for more on presupposition (Levinson, 1983; Yule, 2010). If one looks at the context within which this sentence was made, its meaning becomes quite clear. The aggressive tone towards the EU remains remarkably similar in other articles. The lexical selections made in referring to the EU and the manner in which they are employed consistently point to a discursive strategy , which places blame squarely on both Israel and Europe. For instance, the following extract from an article entitled “Europe is partner in the destruction and killing of the people of Gaza” uses highly charged language that lends force to the negative connotations pointing to Europe’s culpability and blame. The writer sets up a representation of reality that is antagonistic to the EU using justifications and argumentation by employing harsher terms and expressions that negatively describe EU actions and ascribing to it the semantic roles of “partner of killing”, “complicit” and “Israel’s great and important benefactor”.
2 أوروبا والمجتمع الدولي على استعداد لالستمرار في تمويل احتياجات الناس اليومية من خيام و فرشات وأغطية ومالبس داخلية
للنساء، والمواد الغذائية االساسية، وإصالح مضخات المياه والصرف الصحي، من اجل استمرار الحال على ما كان عليه في
السنوات الماضية لحفظ الهدوء إلسرائيل لفترة قادمة، في غياب واضح للعدالة واستمراراالحتالل. أوروبا تمارس النفاق والكذب
وهي داعم كبير ومهم إلس ارئيل على حساب شعب يرزح تحت االحتالل، من دون أي وازع اخالقي او إنساني، فهي تبحث عن
مصالحها [ أوروبا شريك في تدمير و قتل اهل غزة معا مصطفى ابراهيم اغسطس 2014]
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2 Europe and the international community are ready to continue to fund the daily needs of people from tents, mattresses, blankets and women’s underwear, basic foodstuffs… in order to maintain calm for Israel in the next period, and in stark absence of justice. Europe is practicing hypocrisy and lies and it is a great and important benefactor of Israel at the expense of a people living under occupation, without [Europe] showing any moral or humanitarian concerns, it is looking for its interests. [Europe is a partner in the destruction and killing of the people of Gaza, Maan News Agency August 2014].
In this extract, the topic’s construction is carried out through a strategy of negative over- lexicalization associated with the EU (for more on overlexicalization, Achugar, 2007; Teo, 2000).The censuring statements that assigns blames to Europe is strengthened through highly polemical expressions, e.g., ‘practicing hypocrisy and lies’, ‘important benefactor of Israel’ and ‘looking for its interests’.
The following quote not only designates the EU as “complicit” and “partners in the crimes” committed against the Palestinians, but it is also hypocrite in its claims of defending freedom and democracy.
3 على كل حال، هذا العالم الذي يحتشد في القاهرة، من مندوب األمين العام لألمم المتحدة، إلى وفد الواليات المتحدة، ووفد االتحاد
األوروبي، إلى توني بلير ممثل الرباعية الدولية، كل هؤالء متواطئون مع السياسة المراوغة التي تتعمدها حكومة بنيامين نتنياهو.كل
هؤالء، ومرؤوسوهم ينبغي أن يخجلوا من أنفسهم، وأن يكفوا عن االدعاء بأنهم، حراس الحرية والديمقراطية، وحماة حقوق
اإلنسان أو أنهم يملكون ناصية الحضارة، ذلك أنهم مشاركون في الج ارئم التي ترتكبها إسرائيل بحق الفلسطينيين، خصوصاً في
قطاع غزة[.أميركا هي المسؤول أوالً االيام طالل عوكل اغسطس 2014] 3 After all, this world that is gathering in Cairo, from the representative of the UN Secretary General, to the delegations of the United States and the European Union, and Tony Blair, the representative of the Quartet, they are all complacent in the deceptive policy of Benjamin Netanyahu’s [Israeli] government. All of them and their subordinates should be ashamed of themselves, and should stop claiming that they are the guardians of freedom and democracy, the protectors of human rights or they have the cornerstone of civilization, since they are participants in the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip [America is responsible first, Al-Ayyam, August 2014[
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The writer here problematizes the role of Europe by offering a more depressing view of the political reality, which is pitted against the Palestinians, especially in Gaza. The writer’s argument that Europe cannot claim to be standing on the high moral ground is illustrated by using highly charged words and phrases, e.g. ’complacent’, ‘claiming to be protectors…’, and ‘complicit in the crimes’ that establish a dichotomous presentation between Europe’s rhetoric and its actions on the ground. This negative impression is reinforced by the distribution of agency and semantic roles in this excerpt. It is mainly to the EU and other parties that negative agency is attributed. The inconsistencies of EU position and the way it is represented are highlighted in this extract as it constructs Europe as the acting negative subject, while the Palestinians are construed as passive and acted upon taking on the role of the ‘victims’ of a presupposed ‘conspiracy’ (for more transitivity selections, see Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). Israel received a preferential treatment by the EU’s silence over Israel’s killings, hence underpinning theEU’s blameworthiness.
Lexical choice is perhaps the most visible discursive feature, which is used to frame particular social actors and events and often reflects the ideological positions of the journalists and institutions, within which they work. The lexical selection may also have ideological effects on how text consumers are positioned to understand a particular situation by virtue of contributing to the formation of preferred mental models of this situation (Van Dijk, 1998a, 2001). In relation to Europe and the EU as social actors, Europe is generally referred to generically not specifically, which points to the writers’ attitudes to frame Europe as one monolithic entity represented by the EU rather than considering the different foreign policies European governments adopt on the situation. Further, the EU tends to be given the lexical categories of ‘complicit’ and ‘hypocrisy'. Table (3) includes examples of such negative references to the EU in opinion articles that underlie the writers’ attitudes towards Europe and contribute to the overall negative tone in these articles.
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Table 3: Negative references to EU(rope) in opinion articles Claims they are democracy defenders Silence of European governments Double standard policies Failing to stop Israel’s attacks Lack of pressure to stop settlement building and expansion Watching from a distance and not intervening to stop Israel’s killings Rewarding Israel for its aggressions Giving the green light to Israel to carry out more attacks Siding with the Israeli aggressor Exercising hypocrisy and deception Big support for Israel Concerned for its interest Complicit with Netanyahu’s deceptive policies They should be ashamed of themselves They are participants in the crimes against Palestinians
These references show notable similarities in the three Palestinian media outlets, which adopt similar articulations of the EU’s role, and how it is portrayed; they may be driven by political realities that saw a near-absence of any tangible European role. The higher frequency of the criticisms, negative overall tone, and representation of the EU is an indicator of the media's ideological stance. Wenden (2005) holds that the words, phrases or expressions used in a text to characterize people, groups, social relations, actions or circumstances that shape and formulate a conflict are selected from a large variety of options to reinforce and legitimate the ‘ideology communicated through the discourse themes’ (cited in Shreim, 2012: 148).
4.2.2 An Ineffective International Player
The frequency of negative representation of the role of the EU is quite observable in the various opinion articles. This topic was referred to in six articles making about 25% of the whole corpus of opinion articles. The second topic that was arrived at involves writers’ critical representation of the EU was an important international actor, yet ineffective in changing realities on the ground, mainly, by putting pressure on Israel to stop attacks against the Palestinians in Gaza and
Journal of the Arab American University. Volume (5). Number (2)/2019 |19 Europe in Palestinian Eyes … Mohammed Amer end all colonial settlement activities in the Palestinian territories. Writers made repeated references to the inefficacy of the EU as an international player in the region, though they were less critical of Europe than in the first topic. This inefficacy is argumentatively based on the idea that Europe provides huge financial assistance to the Palestinians, and has strong trade, diplomatic and research relations with Israel(for a brief on this EU role, see Gomel 2016), thereby pointing to a discrepancy between Europe’s rhetoric and actions on the ground, with the hope of getting a more active European role in the conflict. One finds an explicit reference to this inefficacy in the following quotation where such ideas are pronounced.
4 إنالحكومة االسرئيلية تستفيد من صمت الحكومات األوروبية التى تكتفى فقط بمجرد التعبير عن "االسف" لسقوط ضحايا
مدنيين...ماذا ينتظر االتحاد األوروبي التخاذ التدابير وفرض العقوبات الالزمة لوقف جرائم هذه الحرب؟؟ اال تدرك
الحكومات االوروبية أن المعايير المزدوجة المطبقة على الفلسطينيين سوف تغذي االستياء والكراهية ليس فقط في الشرق
األوسط، ولكن أيضا في العواصم األوروبية؟[شهيد برسالة للمتضامنين األوروبيينمعا 2014 اغسطس]
4 The Israeli government benefits from the silence of the European governments that are satisfied only by expressing "regret" for civilian casualties... What is the EU waiting for in order to take measures and impose the necessary sanctions to stop the crimes of this war? Don’t the European governments realize that the double standards applied to the Palestinians will feed resentment and hatred not only in the Middle East but also in the European capitals?…[Shahid in a message to the European solidarity activists 2014 August, Maan News Agency]
Here the overall critical tone is significantly affected by the deployment of these references. Referring to the EU and European governments as exercising “double standards” on the Palestinians implicitly assigns blame to them as being complicit with Israel’s action and perhaps shoulder responsibility for the violence and hatred spilling over in the Middle East and beyond. Note that the writer here expresses resentment towards the EU as failing to take action to stop the war in Gaza. The rhetorical questions can be read as assigning blame to the EU in this state of affair. Referring to European governments as “silent” construes Europe as hesitant, uncertain, or unwilling to take action, and by implication the writer holds itas sharing responsibility for the bloodshed and hatred in the Middle East and beyond. A victimization of the Palestinians becomes a direct correlate to this argumentative move of assigning blame to the EU.
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In a similar vein, the writer in the extract below expresses explicit criticism of European governments for their inaction in taking measures, which redress what Palestinians perceive as political wrongs in relation to stopping Israel’s actions during the war and its settlement activities. Assigning blame to EU is clearly at the heart of this topic for failure to act decisively and responsibly to stop Israel and this led Israel to unleash its attacks. Similarly, blame is also ascribed to the EU for not “exercising a real pressure” to halt Israel’s settlement expansionist policies. Such blame presupposes that Europe has the ability to act decisively but refrained from doing so. The blame assignment here is relied on the argument that failure to act is blameworthy and implies condoning what Israel has done, and therefore it is incommensurate with European values.
5 إن دعم دول العالم المختلفة وخاصة الواليات المتحدة ودول االتحاد االوروبي لتحقيق السالم وانهاء الصراع الفلسطيني االسرائيلي
من خالل ما يسمى بحل الدولتين ، يصطدم بحقيقة انهم جميعا لم يتخذوا ما يلزم من اجراءات لمنع اسرائيل من تدمير هذا الحل
، مما جعل اسرائيل تشعر بالتشجيع لمواصلة جرائمها وتحطيمها ألية امكانية للوصول الى السالم... . كما انها لم تقم بضغط
حقيقي يؤدي الى توقف اسرائيل عن بناء وتوسيع المستوطنات.[العيسة في االمم المتحدة معا 2014 يوليو]
5 Support by various countries around the world, especially the United States and the EU countries, for achieving peace and ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the so-called two-state solution collides with the fact thatthey have not taken the necessary measures to prevent Israel from destroying this solution. This has made Israel feel encouraged to continue its crimes and destroy any possibility of achieving peace…They even failed to exercise a real pressure on Israel to stop building and expanding settlements[Alissa in the United Nations July 2014 Ma'an News Agency].
Note the negative agency of Europe in this respect, and as such they are ineffective and unwilling to take actions to bring about peace in the region through their failed policies, which encouraged Israel to attack the Palestinians and undermine peace. The expressions such as ‘have not taken the necessary measures’, ‘failed to exercise real pressure’ reveal the presence of an anti-European sentiment. These underscore the eroding role of the EU as an effective international player in actual events and policies on the ground.
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In this respect, modality plays a key role in media discourse, as they may signal the degree of certainty or probability regarding a proposition and what information is deemed true, believable or false or what people must or may do (van Dijk, 2018). Extract 6 below features a clear example of strong modality where the writer presents his propositions of Europe’s inaction and failure to do tangible steps to stop settlement building as factual and certain.
6 ربما هذا بالضبط ما كان يريده األميركيون وخلفهم االتحاد األوروبي الذين يضغطون من خالل سياسة "عدم الضغط" ودع الطرفين
يكسران رؤوس بعضهما حتى يستجديا التدخل األميركي.وهذا كان يتطلب من الواليات المتحدة واالتحاد األوروبي مراقبة المشهد
من بعيد ولكن من داخله،يتركون التصعيد يفعل فعل الخميرة في العجين ولكن تصعيدا مضبوطا ال يرفع مستوى النار حتى ال
يحترق كل شيء [إسرائيل من الداخل: ثالثة أسابيع صاخبة وحائرة األيام يوليو2014] 6 Perhaps this is exactly what the Americans and the EU behind them wanted, with the EU exercising pressure through the "no pressure" policy, and let the two sides break each other's heads, until both sides beg for American intervention.This required the United States and the European Union to watch the scene from afar, but keep the escalation under control to a certain point so as not to burn everything... [Israel from within: three noisy and confused weeks Al-Ayyam July 2014]
The analysis of the extract 6 shows that its main argument centres on the main topic,which is the failure of the EU to act decisively on time. This is represented in a delegitimation move built on the presupposition that the Europeans and the Americans had the ability to intervene to stop the killings, but they chose to refrain from doing anything and to exert no pressure, which implicates them in the responsibility for the war on a same par with Israel. The amplification of the EU's negative agency that comes through the use of metaphors is especially interesting in the extract and is indicative of an ideological stance that involves a negative construction of the situation. The metaphorical expressions ‘break each other's heads’ and ‘watch the scene from afar’ portray both Europe and America’s actions as driven by political gimmick and manipulation than by liberal values and principles.
As becomes clear in this respect, there is consistency in the overall negative tone and representation of EU and its policies as the EU tends to be accompanied with epithets or descriptions that characterize its negative role in the conflict.
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4.2.3 Sympathetic European Popular Position
The repeated emphasis in several articles on the absent or negative role of the EU contrasts with the praise ascribed to the pro-Palestinian popular protests during the war. Praising sympathetic European popular position totaled nine opinion articles making up about 38% of the opinion articles. It was clear that the instances of the positive representations are related to European public opinion, namely the references to the pro-Palestine demonstrations in various European countries in solidarity with the Palestinians under Israeli attack in Gaza. This solidarity is perhaps connected to notions commensurate with European values of upholding justice, democracy and human rights, and fits in line with what Witney (2013: 5) argued that “Public opinion across the EU is consistently less patient with Israeli policies and more sympathetic to the Palestinians’ predicament.” Take, for instance, the positive representation of Europe in the two quotes below, which is contrasted with the negative representation of its official policies discussed in the two sections above.
7 مع تصاعد وتيرة التحركات الشعبية في مدينة ستراسبورغ الفرنسية، عاصمة البرلماناالوروبي، من مسيرات جماهيرية حاشدة تضامنا
مع الشعب الفلسطيني وتنديدا بالعدوان االسرائيلي على قطاع غزة، ووقفات احتجاجية امام مقر البرلمان في ستر اسبورغ والتي
نظمتها نظمتها جمعيات التضامن مع الشعب الفلسطيني ومختلف اطياف المجتمع المدني المحلي…التي طالبت فرنسا
واالتحاد االوروبي بفرض عقوبات فورية على دولة االحتالل االسرائيلي،ووقف كافة اشكال التعاون
بين االتحاد االوروبي واسرائيل...اعتبرت ان مثل هذه التحركات الشعبية تعبر عن الضمير االخالقي الحي لقطاع واسع من الراي
العام االوروبيالذي يرفض الظلم[شهيد برسالة للمتضامنين االوروبينمعا 2014 اغسطس]
7 With the rise in the pace of popular movements in the French city of Strasbourg, the capital of the European Parliament, mass rallies in solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemnation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and vigils in front of the Parliament in Strasbourg organized by the pro-Palestinian solidarity organizations and sectors of local civil society… that demanded that France and the EU impose immediate sanctions on the Israeli occupation state and stop all forms of cooperation between the EU and Israel ... It was considered that such popular movements express the moral conscience of a broad sector of European public opinion that refuses injustice [Shahid in a message to the European solidarity activists 2014 August, Ma’an News Agency]
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8 في مقابل الحلف العربي اإلسرائيلي ضد المقاومة الفلسطينية، فقد أحدثت الحرب على غزة قطعاً بين األوروبيين الذين ثاروا في
الشوارع ضد العدوان وبين اإلسرائيليين الذي رضعوا خيرات أوروبا لعشرات السنين، وقد تجلى هذا القطع في االعتراف اإلسرائيلي
أن العداء لليهود في أوروبا قد زاد بنسبة 100% بعد الحرب على غزة، حتى أن الخارجية اإلسرائيلية قد أوصت اليهود في الدول
األوروبية بعدم التحدث باللغة العبرية، مع ضرورة إخفاء مالمحهم التي تشير إلى ديانتهم حين الذهاب إلى الكنس اليهودية [ما
الدليل على نهاية )إسرائيل) (د.فايز أبو شمالة فلسطين 11أغسطس 2014]
8 Unlike the Arab-Israeli alliance against the Palestinian resistance, the war on Gaza has definitely caused a chasm between the Europeans who took to the street against aggression and the Israelis who sucked the wealth of Europe for decades. This was manifested in the Israeli admission that anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe increased by 100% after the war on Gaza, such that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has recommended Jews in European countries not to speak Hebrew, with the need to hide features that refer to their religion when going to the synagogues [What evidence is there for the end of (Israel)?Dr. Fayez Abu Shammalla, Felesteen, August 11, 2014
Shifts are noticeable in the choice of words, and an overall positive tone is carried out in these articles representing this topic , which is illustrated partly by the positive references to Europe in the opinion articles as listed in Table 4 below.
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Table 4: Positive references to EU(rope) in opinion articles Supporting a two-state solution Providing people’s daily needs, such as food and blankets Huge popular protests in the EU region in support of the Palestinians Popular protests reflect European public opinion’s conscience in refusing injustice Serious popular stance rejecting Israel’s racism and aggression European street protesting against Israel’s actions More vigorous EU stance against settlements considering them illegal EU declaring it’s become impatient with the settlement policies Warning companies of dealing with settlements’ products losing patience with the policy of settlement building
In a related vein, some writers conjured up a favorable assessment of the EU role and European governments’ policies, especially those relating to stressing the illegality of Jewish colonial settlements and calls for boycotting their products. In the two extracts below, both writers praise the clear EU stance on the colonial settlement issue. The verb phrases ‘take more effective measures’, ‘warn their citizens’ and ‘welcome the measures’ all serve to emphasize a favourable assessment of the EU role.
9 وشهدنا ان دول االتحاد األوروبي تأخذ خطوات أكثر فاعلية من موضوع المستوطنات وتعلن بوضوح ان المستوطنات غير
مشروعة، وتنذر مواطنيها من التعامل مع المستوطنات.. واعلن سفير االتحاد األوروبي في تل ابيب إن دوال كثيرة
في االتحاد األوروبي تفقد صبرها إزاء سياسة البناء في المستوطنات... وان االتحاد األوروبي يرى ان المستوطنات غير شرعية
من جهة القانون الدولي. انتصار العقالنية الفلسطينيةنبيل عودة معا 2014 يوليو
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9 We have seen that the EU countries have taken more effective steps on the issue of settlements and clearly declare that the settlements are illegal and warned their citizens of dealing with the settlements. The European Union ambassador in Tel Aviv said that many countries in the European Union are losing patience with the policy of settlement building... The European Union believes that the settlements are illegal under international law. Victory of the Palestinian rationalism together 2014 July
10 هذا مع أننا نرحب باإلجراءات التي اتخذها االتحاد االوروبي أخيرا للحد من تسويق منتجات المستوطنات في أسواقه وتحذيرات
بعض دوله للشركات لديها من القيام بأية اعمال لها عالقة باالستيطان لما لذلك من تبعات قانونية ، واننا نطالب بالمزيد من هذه
االجراءات وصوال إلجبار اسرائيل على التوقف النهائي عن االستيطان وازالة المستوطنات القائمة. [ العيسة في االمم المتحدة
معا 2014 يوليو]
10 We welcome the measures taken by the European Union recently to limit the marketing of settlement products in its markets in addition to the warnings by some [EU]states to their companies of the legal consequences of carrying out any dealings with the settlement. We demand [the EU] to do more of these measures to force Israel to completely halt settlement and remove existing settlements [Alissa in United Nations together 2014 July]
In these extracts, we see positive references to concrete actions that Europe , including the EU, carried out that the writers construed as positive and supportive of Palestinian rights in stopping colonial settlements and help draw clear lines between positive and negative representations of Europe.
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Conclusion
This study looked into the representation of Europe in key Palestinian media outlets. Contrary to the researcher’s expectations, the results show that no significant differences were noted between the three Palestinian media outlets in their representation of the Europe, including the EU. The analysis shows a split in the representation of the EU whereby news reporting reveals a rather neutral-to-positive assessment of EU and European governments through reporting on the protests all over the EU region criticizing the Israeli attacks on Gaza and highlighting policies aimed to boycott the Israeli settlement products. Opinion articles, however, projected an overall negative representation of the EU role as being complacent, reticent and ineffectual in taking on a vigorous political role that counters US unconditional support to Israel and its policies and one that goes beyond offering financial support to the two parties involved in the conflict. An important distinction centres on the disparity between perception and action. The media representations of the EU frequently focused on the rather negative official role played by the EU highlighting the disparity between EU's political rhetoric and policies adopted vis-à-vis the Palestinians during this conflict. It points to the degree to which the EU governments failed to intervene to alleviate the suffering and brutalities faced by the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. Despite claims to the contrary, much of the European efforts, largely financial, did not play a stabilizing role in the region due to US’ monopoly over the political negotiation and also reticence and reluctance or unwillingness on the part of Europeans to play an active role. Such incongruous EU policies encourage Israel to continue its attacks and bolster its grip on the Palestinian people. Here representations centred on assigning negative attributes that squarely put the blame on the EU for taking no action to pressure Israel to stop its attacks on the Palestinians. This is contrasted with a praise of the European popular position supporting the Palestinians, especially in referring to the popular protests across Europe and the calls for boycott of Israeli settlements. Contrary to the diversity of opinions and perspectives that Palestinian media discourses variously have on many political issues whether local, regional or international, the study shows that Palestinian media representation of the EU did not offer a nuanced and sophisticated treatment of the EU role during the 2014 war on Gaza.
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Rather, writers dealt with the EU as one monolithic entity that takes on unified policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians, yet failed to unpack the politics and diverse policy positions taken by the EU member states, a matter that seems to erode the prospects of an effective and fully engaged EU stance that is attuned to Palestinian issues and demands. Thus, the Palestinian media need to bring to light the various politics, dynamics and contexts influencing the EU system in order to better assess EU policies and articulate the need for both bolstering ties with the EU and its member states and highlighting the consequences of the lack of consensus among EU member states on the Palestinian just demands and rights.
1Available on the European Commission website https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood- enlargement/neighbourhood/countries/palestine_en
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28. Van Dijk, T.A. (2018). Discourse and migration. In R. Zapata-Barrero and E. Yalaz (eds.), Qualitative Research in European Migration Studies. Cham, Switzerland: IMISCOE Springer Open. 29. Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for Critical discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 30. Witney, N. (2013). Europe and the vanishing two-state solution. London: The European Council on Foreign Relations. 31. Wodak, R., & Chilton, P. (eds.) (2005). A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity. Philadelphia: John Benjamin Publishing. 32. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds.), (2016). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. 33. Yule, G. (2010). The Study of Language (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Journal of the Arab American University. Volume (5). Number (2)/2019 |30 Europe in Palestinian Eyes … Mohammed Amer
أوروبا في عيون الفلسطينيين: تمثيل اإلعالم الفلسطيني لالتحاد األوروبي خالل حرب
2014 على غزة
محمد مشير عامر
قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية، الجامعة اإلسالمية - غزة [email protected]
الملخص
في أوقات الحرب واألزمات الوطنية، يصبح دور وسائل اإلعالم أكثر وضوحا ً، فيكون لها تأثير كبير في تشكيل وجهات نظر الجمهور
والتصورات حول القضايا الوطنية والجهات والكيانات السياسية المختلفة. وتحلل هذه الورقة كيفية تمثيل االتحاد األوروبي في وسائل اإلعالم الفلسطينية
خالل الحرب اإلسرائيلية على غزة عام 2014. وتعتمد الدراسة على منهج تحليل الخطاب النقدي في تحليل التقارير اإلخبارية ومقاالت الرأي المنشورة
خالل شهري الحرب في ثالث وسائل إعالم فلسطينية رئيسية، وهي وكالة معاً اإلخبارية وصحيفتا فلسطين واأليام.
ويظهر التحليل كيف أن وسائل اإلعالم الفلسطينية أبرزت تمثي ًال سلبيًا عامًا لدور االتحاد األوروبي خالل الحرب على أنه متخاذل ومتردد
وغير فعال في وقف هجمات إسرائيل على غزة، وأي ًضا تجاه االضطالع بدور سياسي قوي في مواجهة الدعم األمريكي غير المشروط إلس ارئيل، في حين
أشادت وسائل اإلعالم بالموقف الشعبي األوروبي الداعم للفلسطينيين ودعوات مقاطعة المستوطنات اإلسرائيلية. وخلصت الدراسة إلى أن وسائل اإلعالم
الفلسطينية تعاملت مع االتحاد األوروبي بوصفه كيانًا واح ًدا متجان ًسا، في حين أن هناك حاجة إلى تسليط الضوء على المواقف والسياقات المختلفة التي
تؤثر في مؤسسات االتحاد األوروبي والدول األعضاء فيه. ومثل هذه المعاملة الدقيقة لالتحاد األوروبي ضرورية لتق ويم سياسات االتحاد األوروبي بشكل
أفضل، واإلشارة إلى عواقب دور االتحاد األوروبي غير الفعال وغير المتجاوب مع المطالب والحقوق الفلسطينية العادلة.
الكلمات المفتاحية: تحليل الخطاب النقدي، وسائل اإلعالم الفلسطيني، أوروبا، التمثيل، حرب 2014 على غزة.
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